How Vermuyden Financed the Hatfield Chase Drainage

After agreeing with Charles I to drain the Isle of Axholme & Hatfield Chase, Cornelius Vermuyden had to work out how to finance his drainage scheme.

The drainage scheme was funded by the sale of Vermuyden’s land to a number of partners, known as Participants. Most of the earliest Participants were Dutch.

Among Vermuyden’s associates, three networks can be discerned:

• The Dutch merchants in London,
• dignitaries and merchants in Dordrecht,
• friends and family of Jacob Cats, mostly Amsterdam merchants.

Jacob Cats as Real Estate Agent

One particularly interesting investor recruitment method involved the Dutch poet and statesman Jacob Cats:

Jacob Cats bought 9,472 acres of land with the intent of selling most of it to investors in the Netherlands. From the autumn of 1627 he acted as a kind of real estate agent for Vermuyden.

Cats was ideally placed to do this because of his marriage with Elisabeth van Valkenburg, member of a wealthy Amsterdam merchant family. He sold large tracts of land to his brothers-in-law Lucas, Marcus and Mattheüs van Valkenburg, Willem van Wely and Fabiaen de Vliet.

The enthusiasm of Dutch investors for the Hatfield Chase project in 1627 was understandable. In the autumn of that year, Vermuyden claimed the drainage scheme was almost completed and petitioned the king for the appointment of commissioners to adjudicate the drained land, so it seemed the investors could start reclaiming and settling their lands in 1628.

However, Vermuyden’s promises proved overly optimistic:

Vermuyden had promised the investors they could start reclaiming their lands in 1628, so in the spring of that year they shipped tenant farmers and farm equipment to Hull only to discover that most of the Level was still flooded and nothing could be done.

It took until 1631 to complete the drainage scheme and only in the spring of that year could the investors start to reclaim and settle the land.

This was the core mechanism: buy into the scheme → receive land once drained.

Dutch investors were primed for this kind of opportunity:

• The Dutch Republic had recently seen high profits from marshland reclamation (e.g., the Beemster polder, 1607–12).
• Investment opportunities in the Netherlands had declined after 1620 due to renewed war with Spain.
• Dutch merchants were actively looking for new overseas reclamation projects.

Some investors were not just financial backers — they moved to the area, becoming landowners or tenants:

This created a community of committed stakeholders who had a direct interest in the scheme’s success.

• Their land was called Scotted Land, subject to taxes to maintain the drainage system.

This formal structure made the investment legible, contractual, and enforceable — essential for attracting serious capital.

The Aerlebout map of 1639, showing the land allocations in Vermuydens share lists the following participants;

• Sir Philibert Vernatti
• Cavel cum suis – assumed to be the land allocation for various participants
• Cornelius Vermuyden
• Cavel of Dordrecht – assumed to be the land allocation for participants from Dordrecht
• M Van Valkenburg
• M Corselis and M Boccard

In State Papers dated June 1 1630 Cornelius Vermuyden applied for denization (Denization was a historical British legal process (13th–19th century) where the Crown granted foreign-born individuals—by Letters Patent—certain rights of a subject, such as owning land.) of 18 individuals so that they were able hold lands in Hatfield Chase.

• Lucas Van Valkenburg
• Marcus Van Valkenburg
• Matthew Van Valkenburg
• William Van Weeley
• Fabien van Vliet
• Leonard Catts
• Symon Jacob Hinloope
• Peter Crupenninck
• Johan van Beerle
• Johan Lyens (Liens)
• Sir Filibert Vernatti
• John Kingston
• Marcellus van Dueren
• Abraham van Dolen
• Jacob van With
• Andrew Boccaert
• Abraham Vernatti

A list in the Stovin Manuscript lists individual owners and the number of acres that they owned in Hatfield Chase in 1635

Lands lately belonging to Sir C. Vermuyden, now John Gibbon	4,554
Mr Andrew Bocard & Mr John Corselis	3,600
Sir Philibert Vernatti	3,150
Mr Abram Vernatti	550
Mr Lucas Van Valkenburgh	1,247
Mr Marcus Van Valkenburgh	1,146
Mr Cornelius Van Beuren	1,300
Mr Matthew Van Valkenburgh	811
Mr Samuel Van Peenan	1,178
Mr John Van Baerie	1,000
Mr James Cambell Knt.	600
Messrs Isaac & Pieter Van Peenan	572
Mr Pieter Cruypennick	440
The Widow of Edward Bishop	400
Mr Marcellus Van Darin	400
Mr William Van Weeley	361
Mr Philip Jacobson	350
Sir John Ogle Knight	339
The heirs of Derrick Semey	300
Mr Abram Struys	250
Mr Leonard Catt	200
Mr Fabian Vliet	200
Messrs Roeloff & Sebastian Franken	200
The Widow of Michael Crayestteyn	200
Mr Abram Dolens	200
The Widow of Dionysius Vandale	160
Mr Jacob Struys	150
Mr Charles de Bruxelles	100
Mr Regnier Cornelisen Vos	100
Mr Wouter Degelder	100
The Professor Goel	100
Mr John Vandimen	100
The heirs of Jacob Droagbroot	80
Sir James Catt Knight	67
Total	24,505